Publishers Weekly
10/02/2023
Historian Eire (Reformations) examines in this insightful study such phenomena as levitation and bilocation (being in two places at once) that were frequently attributed to saints and mystics in the early modern era. These reports flourished from the 15th through the 17th centuries in strongly Catholic southern Europe, especially modern-day Italy and Spain, where followers of such luminaries as St. Teresa of Avila, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, and St. Francis of Assisi offered tantalizing eyewitness testimonies. Acknowledging the impossibility of verifying centuries-old supernatural accounts, Eire delves into the cultural context. He notes that St. Teresa, who begged God to end the miraculous acts in a show of humility, also had reason to fear the Inquisition. The church was wary of the personal power exercised by miracle workers, and could turn against practitioners, accusing them of receiving their abilities from the devil. Drawing on letters, autobiographies, and other primary sources, Eire reveals the Catholic establishment’s struggle to weed out fakes and to spin the narratives surrounding supernatural events in ways they hoped would bolster Catholicism against the threat of rising Protestantism and secularism. He expertly pairs this narrative of a beleaguered institution grappling to control its followers with a meditative exploration of spirituality and the power of belief. Readers interested in magic, religion, or medieval history will want to take a look. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Historically rich and superbly written.”—David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal“They Flew, written in Eire’s familiar evocative, beguiling narrative manner, is in fact more revealing for what it does not say. His oblique style is famous.”—Jan Machielsen, Times Literary Supplement“[This] mischievous history of miracles during the early modern period pokes at our most basic assumptions about life, the universe, and everything.”—The Bulwark“Eire is a master storyteller. . . . A spellbinding narrative reminiscent of the best works of Carlo Ginzburg and Natalie Zemon Davis. . . . [A] masterpiece of historical scholarship.”—Peter B. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books“[A] compelling new book. . . . Eire makes a powerful case for taking [these stories] seriously, and considering them through the eyes of the society in which they happened.”—Katherine Harvey, Engelsberg Ideas“[Eire] challenges assumptions by providing an informative, engaging, and extraordinarily provocative account of ‘impossible events.’”—Glenn C. Altschuler, Jerusalem Post“[An] absorbing and impeccably researched book.”—Peter Harrison, Public Discourse“A fascinating study. . . . Eire is sincerely sympathetic to the complexities and strangeness of the human condition and writes elegantly and clearly.”—Bob Rickard, Fortean Times“This a work which seeks to boldly fly where no early-modern historian has flown before.”—Alexander Faludy, Church Times“Eire examines in this insightful study such phenomena as levitation and bilocation (being in two places at once) that were frequently attributed to saints and mystics in the early modern era. . . . Readers interested in magic, religion, or medieval history will want to take a look.”—Publishers Weekly“Engrossing.”—Katherine Howell, National Review“This book is a game-changer. Eire engages in extensive primary textual work in multiple languages, goes down all the skeptical pathways (including demonological ones), and practices the historian’s bracketing of the obvious truth question: ‘Well, did these people fly or not?’ Eire’s deeper conclusion is secreted, or just shouted, in the title: They Flew. And that, well, that changes everything.”—Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities“Eire has once again done the impossible: written a book with the pace of a thriller and the scope of a historical monograph. He has historically unraveled levitations and bilocations, where the temporal merges with the spiritual: Newton’s gravity with Teresa’s ecstasies. Specialists will find deep insights and general readers will enter a new fascinating universe.”—Jaume Aurell, author of Medieval Self‑Coronations: The History and Symbolism of a Ritual“With sophistication and subtlety, sensitivity and sympathy, Carlos Eire follows the unlikely thread of abundant testimonies about human levitation and bilocation in sixteenth‑ and seventeenth‑century Catholic Europe. His book invites self‑examination about cocksure assumptions and uncritical dogmatisms in the present. A profound meditation on religion, history, and the meanings of modernity, They Flew shows that a history of the impossible is not just possible—it has now been realized.”—Brad S. Gregory, author of The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society“Eire has written an engaging and monumental history of supernatural belief during a period when the miraculous coincided with the Age of Reason: flying nuns and friars were contemporaries of Isaac Newton. For Protestants and Catholics alike, the supernatural imaginary maintained a powerful hold.”—Alison Weber, University of Virginia“Only Carlos Eire could take us on this journey to the impossible. A brilliant feat of scholarship and imagination that requires us to look again at an early modern world we thought we knew.”—Bruce Gordon, Yale University
